That's great to hear! My total collection including non-prog stuff is around 3000+. I also listen to a lot of jazz/jazz fusion, krautrock, zeuhl, ambient, new wave, Brazilian MPB/tropicalia, classical/minimalism, funk, soul, afrobeat, old school hip-hop etc.

Woah nice!

Not a big Tull fan although I've only listened to Aqualung and Thick As A Brick.

Both, I own every album in the collage either on vinyl or my digital library. Probably have 25-30% of the albums shown on vinyl.

Nice, I LOVE Zeuhl. Hope to see Magma live for the first time next year in London.

Wow nice! Is that 1100 prog albums or various genres?

:)

I have long supported eclecticism. I am rather old school myself, so I don't listen to hip-hop but I can enjoy some classic funk & soul; I also listen to all sorts of styles from around the world, particularly Celtic, straight and fusion Jazz, lots of Classical, as well as what is now known as Classic Rock. And Blues. Lots of Blues. As a guitar player, I always appreciate good guitar no matter what the genre.

 

Impressive. Do you happen to have any records for sale on discogs or ebay? I'm from the UK too, would be interested in any prog records you have for sale.

The collage has a lot of older prog from the 70s. Maybe you're more into the newer neo-prog?

I counted same for me......all in vinyl format. I could careless about CDs.

Here's the hi-res image: https://ibb.co/eaqri8

click the "load full resolution" button and you'll be able to zoom in and see the album covers clearly.

By PA's definitions I'd say about:

70% of the 19 "official" prog subgenres (including my PA bands Mutiny in Jonestown (Neo) & WytchCrypt (Experimental/Post Metal))

20% Proto-Prog/Prog Related (Beatles, Black Sabbath, Procol, Queen, Jimi, Led Zep, Bowie, Blue Oyster Cult, etc)

The rest a mix of doom/death metal (Cathedral, My Dying Bride, Celtic Frost, Type O Negative, Sepultura...), goth (Christian Death, Sad Lovers & Giants, Cure...), 80's hardcore punk (Minutemen, Black Flag...), straight up "rock" (Stones, REM, Grateful Dead, Pretenders...), classical (Bach, Schoenberg...), and some other weird miscellaneous stuff 

 

Periodically I do.. I certainly didn't mention it as an advertisement but when I have to slim things down I do use Ebay.. I don't have the storage space I used to and after a couple of house moves it soon makes you realise that you've got to be realistic in keeping a sizeable collection. I was lucky in that I bought up a lot of IKEA 12 inch storage units before they stopped doing them (they might have brought them back in but in a 'chunkier' design.. im not sure..) which really help in keeping a sizeable number in a (relatively) compact space.

Thanks! I'm glad you're able to discover new albums through my collage.

Nice, I listen to a lot of jazz and some classical too. What kind of jazz are you into, bebop, fusion, free jazz etc?

Bad eyesight, so seeing some of these is a problem for me.

I did see at least 74 of those that I own, and probably more. As far as"heard", probably more since I have some radio shows recorded that include even more than I have in my collection.

It would have been a lot more if there was more of the German stuff in there, like TD, Schulze, Can, AD2, Guru Guru, EF solos, CF solos,  and such, for which you would be adding at least 120 albums more easily, and probably one of the most complete "krautrock" collection, up to and including things like Embryo and Agitation Free and derivatives!

My tastes and "collection" has always been about the music itself and the stuff I love dearly ... it has never been about the collection at all. Although I have had to replace most LP's because of the weight and me not owning a house. Still have over 1200 LP's left, and many of them are not even on CD or available on mp3 or equivalent. And most of them will never be seen or heard again, is my guess.

I love German stuff like Krautrock, Progressive Electronic etc, just chose not to add those in my list. Actually had the opportunity to see Can and Faust live. Sad to hear that your LPs are not getting any spins. I bet you have an impressive record collection. Maybe you could sell a few on discogs or Ebay so that someone out there could appreciate these hidden gems. They must be worth a pretty penny if they're so obscure that they're not available on CD or digitally.

Thanks, glad to be a part of a community that share a similar taste in music.

That's great! Which prog reissues do you recommend? The King Crimson 200g reissues directly from the master tapes sound amazing. Also anything that Steven Wilson has got his hands on sounds brilliant. Would love to get my hands on more reissues that sound amazing. 

I wouldn't say that. More like rediscover. I could only discover them if I recognized the cover or am able to make out the name of the band or title. If you have the time to send me a list of the ones you like the most I wouldn't object to that. 

A few observations here(not trying to judge or be nitpicky just what I noticed):

Very little neo prog (I only saw one Marillion album)

No Ozric Tentacles 

I didn't see any prog I recognized from this decade(and just a few from the 2000's)

Mostly seventies prog with a few later ones sprinkled in

A lot of "collector" type of prog (that is to say more obscure vintage prog from the seventies)

I didn't see Il Baletto Bronzo's YS album. ;) :P

I have a lot of neo-prog, prog from the 2000s, stuff by Ozric Tentacles and the Italian prog masterpiece Ys. There are hundreds of other albums I would've also added to this but the thing is that the more pics you add to a collage, the smaller each individual pic gets so it becomes very hard to recognise anything. 

Yeah I love the German stuff too but I wanted to make a collage focused on prog and not krautrock. The pic would've been way too big and the individual albums way too small had I added the hundreds of krautrock albums from my collection. I love Dialoghi del presente by Luciano Cilio and have it in my collection although I'd classify it more as classical/minimalism/chamber music.

Sure, would love to recommend some of my favourites. Any particular sub-genre you're interested in? Maybe Italian, Swedish, Czech, Canadian prog or modern/neo-prog or symphonic prog or avant-prog/RIO etc?

 

On a quick scan I own about 35 of those albums and either recognise or have listened to around another 30.

 

I always wonder though, based on some of the comments in this thread, is it better to have a small collection of albums that you know really well, or a large collection of albums most of which you've hardly listened to?

 

I can't believe that, if you own 3,000 or 4,000 albums that you get time to really listen to that many of them.

 

I don't know how many albums I own, but it's closer to 400 than 4,000 and there are, for example, Yes albums that I've played literally hundreds of times and still get something from them. 

 

I just wonder if maybe less is more when it comes to owning albums?

It's a matter of resources, space, money... as long as there are no issues with that, it can't hurt much to still have an album that I have only listened to once or twice. Occasionally something grabs me ten or twenty years later when for some reason I think I should give this-or-that another spin. I'm at between 1500 and 2000 and of course the number of albums I know really well is much lower, but still... also I have digitised most of them and love to play stuff at random... the more I have, the more adventure. 

 

I do get the idea that it's nice to have a lot of albums so that if something comes into your head you always have the album on hand

 

The problem I find is that I feel guilty if I buy a prog rock album and then don't give it the time and attention it deserves.

 

For example, I bought VdGG's "Still Life" and couldn't get into it at all. 

 

I kept playing it on and off over months and eventually, one day, the fireworks went off in my head and I discovered that I absolutely loved it.

 

If I had just bought it, played it once or twice, and then stored it away in my huge collection I would have never had that experience.

 

I think, especially with prog rock albums, the full richness of an album is often only revealed if you give an album time and attention and, with a vast collection, I don't see how that's possible for the majority of the albums.

 

 

I have 90 that I can recognize from your collage, out of about 750 prog albums that I currently own (CD or digital). 

I recently counted all the albums I have from the top-rated lists for each sub-genre; besides "Symphonic" Prog, I only had, on average, about 5-10% of each sub-genre.  Keeps me wanting to sample and collect more!

too lazy.. or sober to bother actually counting.. but I recognize a great many.  You do have some great tastes

You're absolutely right, having thousands of albums to listen to at my disposal does mean that I spend less time listening to each album multiple times and fully absorbing the music. But most of the albums in my collection that I have yet to listen to are by artists that I have heard before or someone associated with an artist or band that I love, so I have a rough idea about what to expect when blind buying. Although I have 3000+ albums in my collection, I've listened to around 85-90% of them at least twice. I've had this routine for years where I listen to one full album per day. Every morning I pick a random album from the collection, add it to my iPod and listen to it once while commuting to work and a second time while going back home. The ones that I come back to multiple times get added to my list of records to get (which currently has around 200 albums on it). My large collection also inspires me and expands my sound palette which really helps with my job as a composer/sound designer for film and game audio. Anyway, that's my current system. 

Just had another look at my collage and I actually do have Il Balletto di Bronzo's Ys on there. Column 10 Row 2.

Nice selection, indeed ! (own more than half, for sure, in one or other form)

Plus side: plenty of VDGG, Fish out of water

Minus: only one PF, TFTO ?

Found Ozric Tentacles on there too. Pungent Effulgent in Column 13, right end. As for prog from this decade, Steven Wilson's Grace for Drowning (2011) and Änglagård's Viljans öga (2012) are both in the collage.

Too last to count

 

I'd say I heard over 2/3 and must still own 50%

There's no right or wrong way to listen to music. I enjoy returning to an old favorite and knowing every note in advance and playing along in my mind. I enjoy returning to a new favorite and discovering new nuance I hadn't heard before. And I enjoy hearing something for the first time, and that sense of 'exploration' that comes with it. I try not to think about it too much, and just grab whatever suits me moment to moment ... and I know that what works for me won't work for others. 

Yes all the KC 200g reissues sound brilliant, especially LTIA. The Nick Davis Rhino reissues of Genesis albums are also pretty amazing as these are all 1/2 speed remasters.

Steven Wilson has a magic ear for remixing and remastering as well as mixing and mastering new recordings, JTull Aqualung and APP are amazing reissues.

And all the Peter Gabriel 45RPM 1/2 speed remasters are stunning, I think all the lacquers are cut by Matt Colton at Alchemy Mastering.

I own 64 of these on LP or CD. Out of more than 2000 prog albums. This collection is very UK and 70s.

My albums come from 58 countries, with a peak in the early 70s and a lot in the 10s now.

Cool, I'm sure if I go through all the prog I own I'll find stuff from all over Europe, Australia, Middle East, South America and Asia but I'm not actively seeking prog simply based on where it's from. The UK is the birthplace of prog so obviously a majority of my collection will be from there. Btw this is just a small fraction of all the prog I own which includes quite a but of stuff from 2000s and 2010s. 

Yes (not the band) 

Here are some relatively unknown/obscure albums that I highly recommend checking out. Start with the highlighted ones first:

Lucky you! I love zeuhl too and try to listen to the classics like Magma, Zao, Eskaton to newer bands like Kōenji Hyakkei. Magma still being my all-time favourite. Seeing them live in concert is on my bucket list, hopefully one day. They've really cut down on touring which is unfortunate. So cool to hear your Magma story and the fact that you have a pair of Vander's sticks, amazing! Really cool info about Vivante too.

Lots of goodness in there!!!

Honestly...I'm just too lazy to count.

But with the size of my collection currently, I'd guess at least a hundred or more maybe.

If I find the time, I'll do a proper count.

Short answer-Yes

Long answer-Yeeeeeeeesssssssss

I own 64 and i reconigse 200, love that Dûn album, very rare to get a phisical copy

What is maybe even more interesting, that according to this member's profile:  

"

"

You can maybe think of something positive, you've got out of it. 

Really?

How valuable can your time be if you spend any of it pottering around on this forum?